Sea Monkeys

June 21, 2005/

We were talking about Sea Monkeys today. Sea Monkeys are one of those character-building, rite of passage elements of childhood, just like Disney movies where someone dies (Bambi’s mother gets shot, the kid has to shoot Old Yeller – his own dog! You could someday be required to shoot your own dog! That’s just wrong).

I remember being really, really excited when my parents got me my first Sea Monkey kit. They come with a little plastic aquarium, and the picture showed the little family smiling in a group, intriguing humanoid mer-people with crowns, father, mother and children. Baby sea people – how cool is that? I watched and watched, anxious to see them born (method curiously unspecified). And then I realised that there were bugs in the water. I wasn’t ever going to get a little merpeople family, I was going to have bugs. Creepy little shrimp-like water bugs. I cried.

Life is like that, so it’s excellent preparation for adulthood. Buy your kids Sea Monkeys, people. And while you’re at it, make them shoot the family dog.

Marriage is a bit like sea monkeys, at times. You think it’s all going to be fair and even and you are going to take care of each other, help each other to fulfill dreams and ambitions. Sometimes, it seems like that. And then again, sometimes it seems like a big fat seamonkey ripoff.

We had a huge fight last night about the horse. We’d talked about it after the day I ate a lot of arena dirt while trying out the headcase. We had extra money after getting a good deal on the car that Phil wanted, I have a small freelance project coming up, and we have some cash that needs to go on one of the credit cards. Perhaps I could steal a bit of that temporarily, and then pay it back next month. It was do-able…in theory. But no…the result of all of the “discussion” was that I would wait until fall, or whenever Kip is sound again and can be sold. Bye, bye, summer. Fine…I can see his point. But mine is that he is driving a nice car, and things aren’t equal. I make a lot more money, which is all contributed to the household, but my dreams are dismissed because it’s just a “little hobby.”

If I had a dog, I’d shoot it.

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11 Comments

purrthecat

I don’t really know what to say that could help. I know how frustrating life can be at times – especially when it comes to money and financing one’s dreams. I’m currently scrimping so that I can go to Arizona in November for training with Domba AND in January for their annual festival which I’ve deemed as ‘unmissable’. Two trips in three months – yikes! However, I’m gonna try my damnedest to make it happen. Going so far as to start selling stuff on eBay to help it along. I hope you guys can find a way to make your dream happen – it just seems that timing is against you at the moment. *hug*

I always wanted some Sea Monkeys – those little ads were BRILLIANT marketing – if misleading. My folks never let me get any. My dad told me what they were, but I didn’t believe him. I showed him the ad and said ‘but look!’ and he said it was all misleading and he’d show me what they were sometime. I remember looking at some pond water one day and he pointed out some of the little bugs and said ‘There they are. See? You’re not missing out!’ :) I would’ve been seriously unimpressed with an aquarium of water-bugs. So, I learned not to trust ads. :) Not the first lesson in that vein.

uathsaille

uathsaille

chuckdarwin

wandringsoul

I don’t dismiss it as a ‘little hobby’, not at all – which is why we bust a gut to buy Kipper in the first place – because it’s something that makes you happy…and I didn’t dismiss the idea of buying a temporary stop-gap horse at all – I just thought that with finding out what was wrong with Kipper within the next two weeks might give you a better idea of what’s up with him, in order to make a decision. I only baulked because the cheap horse suddenly became less cheap, and the ‘stealing a bit temporarily’ became a grand, ; ) and the money to pay off the credit card ebbing away would leave us with two large repayments each month instead of one large and one teeny…

You know how much I’ve worried about taking on this debt in the first place, I’m just trying to balance you being happy, and us ending up in a financial hole every month…I know – sometimes I’m fucking boring…but I love you, I want you to be happy, I want you to have horse(s) because they MAKE you happy…I’m just trying to make sure we’re not skydiving with nothing more than a backback full of laundry…